By Ryan Deal ’16

What do Will Smith, Channing Tatum, Johnny Depp, Ryan Reynolds and Jamie Foxx all have in common? They all starred in big-budget, box office flops this summer. Yes, these big names, who usually deliver blockbusters to Hollywood studios, all swung and missed this summer. Could it be viewers, including teenagers, who are the target audience of many summer flicks, are sick of big-budget, star-driven movies?

Well, if this summer was any indication, it appears big-budget movies are at risk now more than ever. At the same time, smaller-budget movies excelled this season, grossing huge amounts of money. This summer, smaller movies like “The Conjuring,” “The Call,” “The Heat,” and “We’re The Millers” dominated the box office while the expensive titles crumbled. In total big-budget movies “The Lone Ranger,” “R.I.P.D,” “After Earth,” and “White House Down” cost $640 million to make and only grossed $255 million in the U.S. Meanwhile, “The Conjuring,” “The Call,” “The Heat,” and “We’re The Millers” cost a measly $113 million in total to make while grossing $291 million.

Year after year, big-budget movies come out with the same attempt at appeal. Boom! Crash! Explosion! Car chase! It seems that the blueprint for these films—and the sequels—are the same. While over the years this generic formula has been a source of money for studios, this past summer it has raised a red flag to the studios. For the first time in ages, audiences seem to be attracted to substance rather than the flash and appeal of the generic expensive movie.

“The Lone Ranger,” starring Johnny Depp, was criticized for its commitment to action-pact effects, without a strong enough storyline to back it up. “White House Down,” while not as poorly reviewed as other flops this summer, it was weighed down by the fact that “Olympus Has Fallen;” the successful Gerard Butler flick, was released earlier and was nearly identical to the Channing Tatum film. “After Earth,” was panned for poor acting and an incoherent script. “R.I.P.D”, was criticized for being unoriginal.

The four big-budget flops of the summer averaged a rotten 25 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, a movie rating site based on critics’ reviews. The four smaller-budget successes not only grossed more, but averaged a fresh 60 percent on the site. While there will always be successes in big-budget films in the box office, this trend, in which smaller-budget movies rake in more money, is certainly one to keep an eye on in the coming years.